War
by MyLookOfDenial
Summary: Honor the brave who fought. Honor the dead who fell. Honor the world they saved.


**WAR**

_Honor the brave who fought,_

_Honor the dead who fell,_

_Honor the world they saved.  
_

People associate war with victory and glory, but only true soldiers associate war with loss and pain. People talk of the war as if they were there, as if they knew the hardship and desperation, they act like they know it all.

But how could they?

They were born years too late to understand the Second Wizarding War. They will never understand and we are almost glad they don't know and never will, because then the light will stay in their eyes and the happiness can easily engulf them.

But true veterans of war can never truly escape the fight, we dream of battle and wake up clutching at a ghostly dream wand we do not have in our hands, we wake up whispering words, terrible words that mean nothing to the children born after war. They may talk about the war as if they were there, they may have studied it and it may feature in their lessons, but they will never truly know or comprehend what it was like.

They will not know frantic curses and mud underneath ragged fingernails, they will not know the sobbing and frantic howls of those who have lost a loved one. They will never understand the gaunt faces and hollow heart wrenching sobs throughout the long terrifying nights. They will never know funeral after funeral for weeks and weeks after the war. They won't know the dank and dirty clothing that covered scarred and malnourished war ridden bodies.

All they know is the victory of the war and that Harry Potter, the great hero who vanquished Lord Voldemort. They will never understand the toll it took on that young man, barely even a man in fact, he was still a child, only in his late teens. We all were, we were all too young for war and death and loss of innocence.

They won't understand and neither do we wish such terrible knowledge upon them. We hope that they will never have to face the terrors, the trials and the tribulations that our generation have. We hope that they will not have to fight in a war against a powerful army and use curses that we have had to.

The war was won by the light side, but amidst the bloodshed and death there was no light or dark, no good or evil, because both sides used similar curses. Both killed and both tortured for information. In the end we were both as bad as each other, maybe we started out good and fought for the _light_. But in the end, war corrupts everyone. We were as dark as them in the end. Because war changes people and makes them killers, turns them into death wielding monsters.

We were all monsters, however you want to look at it, we fought, we killed, we often died. No matter how much it has been glorified and how the children of this time learn of the heroics of the golden trio and of Harry Potter saving the world. They won't hear of the light side actually killing without valid reason, they won't even think that the light could do something so horrendous as to kill _just because we could_.

We killed because we had to. It was _kill or be killed. _We had to win, to save the world that we lived in. So we did. Sacrifice upon sacrifice, in the end there was no innocence left. Both sides were as evil and corrupt as each other in the end.

But war changes a person, it turns them into monsters, no matter what side or what you fight for; in the end we are all monsters. _To kill is to survive, death is necessary for war, terror and pain are facts of life in war_. A battlefield is a terrible place and no matter how much one could study what is said to be the _greatest battle of the wizarding world_, they will never understand what it's actually like to be there.

They won't know what it's like to have your comrades fall beside you, they won't know the terrible power of those two seemingly insignificant words: _Avada Kedavra. T_hey won't know the fighting and hardships of a horrific and atrocious war. And we are glad they won't, we are glad that they have been spared, that their innocence will last and they will die not knowing the horrors of war time.

They live in the world that we helped to save, that we fought for and lost friends, family, and lovers for. Great people died for them and people sacrificed great things for the peaceful world that we live in, that they are content in. They won't know how it feels to loose your parents or a sister or a brother or a friend. They won't know the heartache and terror of battle and we are glad, because no one needs such misery or horrors in their lives.

They don't know how lucky they are. We envy their naivety.

Battle is no place for mercy or innocence, it will corrupt you regardless of who you are, the curses you shout define you and you dream of terrible battles with green flashing light and the power of life held in your very hands.

We walk down a street and hear a cry or a shout. Our hands immediately reach for the wand in our pocket [that has done terrible such deeds]. We spin around, wand out, ready to fight to the death, memories of _The Battle of Hogwarts_ engraved into our haunted mind. But the war is over and we turn to fight an enemy that is not there.

The war may be over and long gone, it may be learnt about in history lessons and there may be textbooks all about it, with words that we have spoken or written, our picture may be there, blood soaked and mud covered, a weary look on our faces. There may be smiles and hugging and cries of joy because the war is over in these pictures. But in those pictures the hardship and terrible knowledge is easy to see in the eyes of the so called _war_ _heroes_.

That's what we are often referred to as, but there are no such things as true _heroes _amongst war. They may feel no pity for the Death Eaters lying dead in the background of the photos and we may only feel immense sadness, maybe an inkling of guilt. We are only sad because they are dead because of _us_, we may have killed one of those black cloaked and mask clad figures. They may have been killers and they may have tortured. But we have killed too, and we have tortured, but we have not heartlessly murdered innocents or raped young girls, but we have still taken a life. We are sad because we have taken a life and we are no longer the innocent and care-free schoolchildren that we once were.

We are tainted and jaded, in the worst possible ways. We are murdering monsters and warriors. Regardless of this we are classed as 'the best of the light side', because we survived where others did not. We are the best killers, the best soldiers, which is why we survived. Not because light was the right side to win, not because Death Eaters were heartless killers. But because we were too, because we sacrificed innocence and because we were loyal and desperate to the very end.

We may, or may not have been the better fighters, but somehow we came out on top. If you could even call such a thing winning, then _we won. _But we don't phrase it so, we succeeded, in a twisted kind of way, victory was ours, but we lost so much, we lost loved ones and we can never go back to happy smiles of long ago. We are not the same people we once were and we know that we will never be.

When our children, or nieces and nephews, or our friends' children stare at us in awe and ask us of the war and battle we have no choice but to answer. When they ask us about the great Harry Potter and Ronald Weasley and Hermione Granger we tell them the sugar coated truth.

Because the true truth to such innocent and young children would make their ears bleed, would make them cry and corrupt their young naïve little minds.

We tell them of the greatness of those three individuals and Harry's love for Ginny. But we don't tell them of the people Ron killed or how Hermione's great mind was used to generate ways and ideas to kill many. We don't tell them of how Ginny fought and killed Death Eaters or how Harry left a trail of destruction in his wake.

We don't tell them about the great Dumbledore, they can read what they like in their history books, but we won't soil the great man's name with tales of old times past, or how he let it be so that he was killed to save many lives.

They don't know of the once arrogant and pride filled Draco Malfoy who was really only a scared little boy. They won't know of Vincent Crabbe, on the dark side but only a boy, the power that got to him caused his imminent death. Maybe the power got to his head, or maybe he was just taught dark spells far beyond his years and capacity.

They don't know of Colin Creevy and how a young boy desperate to join the fight like the older children got himself killed. They don't know how his brother mourns his death or of the great trickster Fred Weasley's death. They don't know of how his twin brother George Weasley lost his other half in that battle

They don't know the true _'heroes'_ of war, who lost everything but carried on fighting, or of the poor misguided young children who, because of their parents choices, were swept up into a war far more than them. They don't know of the children we attended Hogwarts with that died on that battlefield. To them they are just names on memorials and in their textbooks. They are not; once living breathing people, they are nothing to these people. But they were everything to us.

They look for the heroics and don't spare a thought for out feelings as they ask us about the great Harry Potter, whose name will go down in history. They don't know the truth. Even those who fought on the other side we often share a thought for because death is death, no matter how deserved of such a death they were.

We are people and we are human, we are just haggard and tired war veterans, struggling to carry on. Struggling to put the terrible and horrific past behind us. We answer the questions of children with well used phrases and words. We are linked together impossibly so, until we all die we will forever know each other, we will remember the war together and our wonderful comrades who fell.

And we forever remember May 2nd 1998, we name our children after our friends who fell, we talk in hushed whispers with others who were there about what it was like, avoiding the truly terrible happenings of war. Unless we have to, we choose not to talk of the war and all that happened. Some of us have married people who did not partake in the war, even those that we love with our whole hearts we do not divulge the horrors of war.

On May 2nd, every year, without fail, we meet together to honour those we loved and lost. We meet together to quietly reminisce on the time in the war, there is no nostalgic feel of it, not like talking about that long hot summer before second year. No, we talk of it in strained voices with tear tracked faces and memories that are far from rose tinted.

We are the survivors. We are looked up to and whispered about, our _great deeds _are legendary and talked about by the young and ignorant. But only we know that there is no true winner in war. We lost far too much at the Battle _of Hogwarts_ to call ourselves the champions and winners, war wasn't like any old Quidditch game and we know it.

_Honor the brave who fought,_

_Honor the dead who fell,_

_Honor the world they saved._

_

* * *

_**It's random but let me know what you think of it.  
For some reason when I wrote this I kinda thought of Lavender Brown.  
So you can think of it from her POV if you like. ****  
**

**MyLookOfDenial. =D  
**


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